A blog offering the thoughts of Matthew Steeples on a variety of matters.

Sunday, 28 August 2011

They’re all dead and they won’t be back

I met Lady Lucan ten years ago at a party at a bar named Jimmyz on Sloane Avenue. When another guest asked her a question, I heard her curtly remark: “They’re all dead” before turning away. That was the last I saw of this somewhat eccentric lady who I hear is now a bit of a recluse. Meanwhile, Jimmyz long since faded away too.

The Earl and Countess of Lucan

Today, a new online publication that calls itself the News of the World Online (and has a very similar logo to that of the now defunct News International title) broke a story that frankly makes every other theory about the disappearance of Lady Lucan’s husband seem relatively reasonable.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

In a piece by Jenny Stanley Clarke and Ross Clarke, it is revealed that allegations have surfaced that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former Governor of California, was involved in the murder of the Lucans' nanny Sandra Rivett and of Lord Lucan himself.

Mistaken victim: Sandra Rivett

For the minority without any knowledge of this case, the known facts of what occurred on the 8th November 1974 are best summarised in the "reconstruction" section of the LordLucan.org website:

1.“At 8.30pm Lord Lucan arrives at the Clermont Club and chats to the doorman to establish an alibi.

2.Lets himself into the family home in Lower Belgrave Street.

3.Waits in the darkened basement. Around 9.00pm he attacks nanny Sandra Rivett by mistake but is disturbed by his wife.

4.He attacks her on the stairs, she calms him down before escaping at 9.50pm to the nearby Plumbers Arms.

5.Lucan leaves the house.

6.Drives to Uckfield in Sussex.

7.From the home of the Maxwell-Scotts he telephones his mother the dowager Countess of Lucan.

8.He later abandons his car near the ferry terminal at Newhaven.

9.It is discovered there next morning.”

Those who believe Lucan wasn’t himself the murderer generally base their theories, it is said, on three possibilities. The first suggests that it was dark in the house and as a result the killer mistook Sandra Rivett for Lady Lucan. Secondly, Lord Lucan’s friends argue that the use of a blunt instrument in such an attack would be utterly out of character. The third suggestion is that Lord Lucan hired a hitman and today’s revelations on the News of the World Online site suggest that this very hitman was none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In their piece, Stanley Clarke and Clarke base the claims they report on the word of an unnamed “ex-Flying Squad officer” who has somehow come to the attention of an Italian businessman named Giovanni Di Stefano.

Giovanni Di Stefano

Conveniently, Di Stefano just happens to also be the publisher of News of the World Online as well as having been part of the legal teams of the likes of paedophile Gary Glitter, serial killer Harold Shipman and Moors Murderer Ian Brady. He is a man who has attempted to have had Tony Blair arrested over his involvement in the war on Iraq. He is a man who, according to a Wikipedia entry, has also himself been arrested, served time in prison, been deported from the USA and banned from being a company director variously. To my mind, that Di Stefano’s title publish such a sensationalistic claim about the former Governator come at the same time as the launch of their new publication just smacks of a desperate attempt to get noticed.

Garth Gibbs

Curiously, today’s revelations coincide with the death of Daily Mirror journalist Garth Gibbs. Diary writer Gibbs is best known for having spent most of his career travelling from one exotic location to the next in search of Lord Lucan. Garth himself once wrote:

“As that brilliantly bigoted and crusty old columnist John Junor once cannily observed: ‘Laddie, you don’t ever want to shoot the fox. Once the fox is dead there is nothing left to chase.’"

It would have been fascinating to know Gibbs’ opinion on this latest bizarre theory about one of the world’s best known missing men and I shall certainly watch with interest to see whether The Dowager Countess of Lucan and Arnold Schwarzenegger deign to comment at all either.

'The Terminator' is best known for his phrase “I’ll be back.” Somehow I suspect Lady Lucan has it right though. Lord Lucan won’t be back as he is indeed most probably dead but what certainly seems ludicrous is that anyone could believe Arnold Schwarzenegger himself had any kind of role in any of this.

An interesting point must be Ian Strachan (formerly known as Paul Adalsteinson) is the Royal Correspondent for News of World Online. He is the very same Ian Strachan who went to jail for trying to blackmail a minor member of the royal family. I'm sure he'll secure countless interviews with the likes of The Duchess of York and Princess Michael of Kent when they learn of his past.

I am more interested myself in the theory that he's alive and politically active in New Zealand. I read your comment on that piece and thought I should link back to there so your readers get an alternative theory. http://greenvoices.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/lord-lucan-is-alive-well-and-exerting-political-influence-in-new-zealand/#comment-14193

Why did you have to ruin my fantasy that Lord Lucan rode off into the sunset on Shergar the racehorse and is now hiding out in a cave with Elvis, Osama Bin Laden, Hitler, Marilyn Munro and Michael Jackson?